TOM LEONARD: It looks like a child’s balloon rabbit - but at $91m, has just become the most expensive work by a living artist. Even more outrageous? The story of the man behind it

He created kitschy pornographic depictions of him and his Italian porn star wife, spent 20 years perfecting a sculpture of a giant lump of Play-Doh and even considered Michael Jackson and his pet chimp Bubbles a worthy artistic subject.

Jeff Koons has polarised opinion like no other contemporary artist. He’s a purveyor of banal gimmickry whose talent is far outweighed by his salesmanship, chorus his many critics.

Others revere an American genius who they insist has been a seminal influence on contemporary art.

Jeff Koons has polarised opinion like no other contemporary artist. He’s a purveyor of banal gimmickry whose talent is far outweighed by his salesmanship, chorus his many critics

But ‘the world’s most expensive balloon clown’, as he’s been dubbed, has notched up another victory over his detractors.

A shiny stainless steel sculpture inspired by a child’s inflatable toy that he created in 1986 sold at Christie’s in New York on Wednesday night for $91.1million (£71million).

It broke the record at auction for a work by a living artist, set last November by British painter David Hockney.

The winning bid for the sculpture Rabbit — one of four Koons produced — came from Robert Mnuchin, an art-dealer and the father of Donald Trump’s current Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin.

A multi-millionaire former Goldman Sachs banker, Mr Mnuchin Sr is just the sort of mega-rich art connoisseur whose patronage of Koons’s shiny, often gargantuan pieces has pushed the sale prices of his works to staggering heights.

The former Wall Street commodities broker has certainly made a commodity of art. His gaudy creations have been hailed as the ultimate trophy for billionaires — he’s popular with Russian oligarchs — who prefer spectacle over subtlety.

But ‘the world’s most expensive balloon clown’, as he’s been dubbed, has notched up another victory over his detractors. A shiny stainless steel sculpture inspired by a child’s inflatable toy that he created in 1986 sold at Christie’s in New York on Wednesday night for $91million (£71million)

Rabbit is only 41 inches tall, titchy by Koons’s standards — his famous balloon dogs are 12ft long and 10ft high — but is regarded as a seminal work.

Damien Hirst and other Brit Art stars cite Koons, 64, as a critical influence. The Pennsylvania native says his eye-catching creations are a commentary on the emptiness of the American Dream.

The late, respected art critic Robert Hughes claimed Koons ‘couldn’t carve his name on a tree’.

He was particularly infuriated that Koons doesn’t physically craft his objects himself but leaves it to his 148-strong team of assistants.

The winning bid for the sculpture Rabbit — one of four Koons produced — came from Robert Mnuchin, an art-dealer and the father of Donald Trump’s current Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin

Sceptics compare Koons to the pop artist Andy Warhol, who memorably said ‘art is what you can get away with’.

Koons’s art has included Puppy, a 43ft-high West Highland terrier covered with living flowers (which costs its owner £64,000 a year to maintain), and Play-Doh, a 10ft-high multi-coloured mountain of the children’s modelling compound, made from aluminium and which he says was inspired by something his toddler son made.

The son of an interior decorator, Koons showed money-making flair as a child by selling sweets and wrapping paper door-to-door.

He began art lessons at the age of seven.

By nine he was painting copies of old masters, which his father sold in his showroom.

Koons was studying art in Maryland when he fathered a child with a fellow student. The child was put up for adoption by the girl’s parents.

Koons claims he sought fame in part because his ‘visibility’ would help his daughter find him. They met decades later after she had come of age, and are now close.

After moving to New York, he produced artworks including inflatable plastic toys placed on mirrors and kitchen appliances encased in brightly lit glass display cases.

These were financed by a high-pressure job on Wall Street. His first major art success was a 1988 show called Banality, which included porcelain figurines of a nearly life-size Michael Jackson and Bubbles, and another of a semi-naked blonde embracing the Pink Panther.

In 1991, Koons married La Cicciolina, an Italian porn star whose real name was Ilona Staller. She was also an Italian MP who once offered to have sex with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein if he freed hostages.

In 1991, Koons married La Cicciolina, an Italian porn star whose real name was Ilona Staller. She was also an Italian MP who once offered to have sex with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein if he freed hostages

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After seeing her in a porn magazine, Koons flew to Rome and went backstage after one of her notorious stage performances involving a live snake.

He persuaded her to collaborate on a controversial series of sculptures and paintings called Made In Heaven, in which he was naked and she barely clothed.

One piece had an unprintable name; another, Silver Fish, was a full-frontal portrait of Ms Staller’s genitals, framed by a pair of her fishnet stockings.

Critics were appalled but Koons insisted it wasn’t pornography because ‘sex with love is a higher state’.

Ignoring the advice of friends and family, he married her. They celebrated by posing in a New York Gallery in front of glass sculptures of themselves in tantric positions.

In 1992 they had a son, Ludwig, but separated the following year, partly because Staller refused to stop making porn.

Staller took Ludwig, then 18 months old, back to Italy in contravention of a court order, alleging Koons had subjected her to physical and emotional abuse.

Koon's 2004 Balloon Dog, which sold for $58.4million (£42million), is one of the many works of his which has attracted criticism

Claiming he was the victim of child abduction, Koons fought a decade-long but unsuccessful legal battle which cost him millions of dollars.

He was so furious with his ex-wife that he destroyed all the remaining works he had from their Made In Heaven collaboration.

He says he poured his sorrows into his art during the 1990s, basing much of his work on children’s toys, including the balloon dogs.

Koons said he hoped his absent son would see them and know he was thinking of him. Sadly, he has yet to return.

The artist has six other children by his second wife, South African artist Justine Wheeler.

The artist has six other children by his second wife, South African artist Justine Wheeler

Koons has repeatedly been found guilty of copying other people’s work, most recently last November in a $170,000 (£133,000) payout to a French adman over a picture of a woman lying in the snow, being nuzzled by a pig.

Friends say his innocent, romantic aura — he talks like a motivational speaker — is genuine.

Others insist it’s an act put on by a crafty showman who knows what sells.

Either way, rarely has a child-like love of toys made a man so rich.

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TOM LEONARD: The story of the Jeff Koons, the man behind the $91m Rabbit sculpture